DiSCmap : digitisation of special collections mapping, assessment, prioritisation. Final project report

Traditionally, digitisation has been led by supply rather than demand. While end users are seen as a priority they are not directly consulted about which collections they would like to have made available digitally or why. This can be seen in a wide range of policy documents throughout the cultural heritage sector, where users are positioned as central but where their preferences are assumed rather than solicited. Post-digitisation consultation with end users isequally rare. How are we to know that digitisation is serving the needs of the Higher Education community and is sustainable in the long-term? The 'Digitisation in Special Collections: mapping, assessment and prioritisation' (DiSCmap) project, funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) and the Research Information Network (RIN), aimed to:- Identify priority collections for potential digitisation housed within UK Higher Education's libraries, archives and museums as well as faculties and departments.- Assess users' needs and demand for Special Collections to be digitised across all disciplines.- Produce a synthesis of available knowledge about users' needs with regard to usability and format of digitised resources.- Provide recommendations for a strategic approach to digitisation within the wider context and activity of leading players both in the public and commercial sector.The project was carried out jointly by the Centre for Digital Library Research (CDLR) and the Centre for Research in Library and Information Management (CERLIM) and has taken a collaborative approach to the creation of a user-driven digitisation prioritisation framework, encouraging participation and collective engagement between communities.Between September 2008 and March 2009 the DiSCmap project team asked over 1,000 users, including intermediaries (vocational users who take care of collections) and end users (university teachers, researchers and students) a variety of questions about which physical and digital Special Collections they make use of and what criteria they feel must be considered when selecting materials for digitisation. This was achieved through workshops, interviews and two online questionnaires. Although the data gathered from these activities has the limitation of reflecting only a partial view on priorities for digitisation - the view expressed by those institutions who volunteered to take part in the study - DiSCmap was able to develop:- a 'long list' of 945 collections nominated for digitisation both by intermediaries andend-users from 70 HE institutions (see p. 21);- a framework of user-driven prioritisation criteria which could be used to inform current and future digitisation priorities; (see p. 45)- a set of 'short lists' of collections which exemplify the application of user-driven criteria from the prioritisation framework to the long list (see Appendix X):o Collections nominated more than once by various groups of users.o Collections related to a specific policy framework, eg HEFCE's strategically important and vulnerable subjects for Mathematics, Chemistry and Physics.o Collections on specific thematic clusters.o Collections with highest number of reasons for digitisation

Artefacts and Errors: Acknowledging Issues of Representation in the Digital: Imaging of Ancient Texts

It is assumed, in palaeography, papyrology and epigraphy, that a certain amount of uncertainty is inherent in the reading of damaged and abraded texts. Yet we have not really grappled with the fact that, nowadays, as many scholars tend to deal with digital images of texts, rather than handling the texts themselves, the procedures for creating digital images of texts can insert further uncertainty into the representation of the text created. Technical distortions can lead to the unintentional introduction of ‘artefacts’ into images, which can have an effect on the resulting representation. If we cannot trust our digital surrogates of texts, can we trust the readings from them? How do scholars acknowledge the quality of digitised images of texts? Furthermore, this leads us to the type of discussions of representation that have been present in Classical texts since Plato: digitisation can be considered as an alternative form of representation, bringing to the modern debate of the use of digital technology in Classics the familiar theories of mimesis (imitation) and ekphrasis (description): the conversion of visual evidence into explicit descriptions of that information, stored in computer files in distinct linguistic terms, with all the difficulties of conversion understood in the ekphratic process. The community has not yet considered what becoming dependent on digital texts means for the field, both in practical and theoretical terms. Issues of quality, copying, representation, and substance should be part of our dialogue when we consult digital surrogates of documentary material, yet we are just constructing understandings of what it means to rely on virtual representations of artefacts. It is necessary to relate our understandings of uncertainty in palaeography and epigraphy to our understanding of the mechanics of visualization employed by digital imaging techniques, if we are to fully understand the impact that these will have

Into the Wide – Into the Deep: Manuscript Research in the Digital Age. Introduction

Manuscript research is a wide field of scholarship which is integrated in core disciplines such as history, philology, or library science. Yet manuscript research is also crucial in other fields such as archaeology, history of arts, musicology or Egyptology, to name but a few. For all these disciplines, manuscripts are fundamental sources. There are different approaches to different types of manuscripts, but questions and perspectives, methodologies and tools are often quite similar. Innovations and new research strategies from one discipline can be transferred to and adopted by others. This article is an introduction to the second volume of the anthology "Codicology and Palaeography in the Digital Age" and gives an overview of current aspects in the field of manuscript studies in both theory and practice by showing the relatedness of the contributions to the volume at hand as well as its predecessor. The texts are roughly assigned to five interrelated areas of manuscript research: (I) the photographic capturing of the manuscript surface, (II) the description of the manuscript for a catalogue, (III) the scientific examination of material aspects, (IV) the analysis of the script and (V) the deep encoding of the text itself

Digital Preservation Services : State of the Art Analysis

Research report funded by the DC-NET project.An overview of the state of the art in service provision for digital preservation and curation. Its focus is on the areas where bridging the gaps is needed between e-Infrastructures and efficient and forward-looking digital preservation services. Based on a desktop study and a rapid analysis of some 190 currently available tools and services for digital preservation, the deliverable provides a high-level view on the range of instruments currently on offer to support various functions within a preservation system.European Commission, FP7peer-reviewe

D7.3 Training materials

This Deliverable gives a detailed description of the comprehensive training programme and of the open educational content that the University of Padua has accomplished up to now for the project "Linked Heritage: Coordination of standard and technologies for the enrichment of Europeana" (CIP Best Practice Network). The final version of D7.3 will be released by the end of the project, when all the Learning Objects will be finished

New Renaissance (The)

Les sages de ce comité ont procédé à l\u27étude du projet de numérisation de l\u27ensemble du patrimoine culturel européen et proposent dans ce rapport une série de recommandations visant à encadrer cet ambitieux programme afin de : -partager notre patrimoine commun, dans toute sa richesse et sa diversité ; - relier notre passé à notre présent ; - préserver cet héritage pour les générations futures ; - protéger les intérêts des créateurs européens ; - favoriser la créativité, celles des professionnels comme celles des amateur

"Beyond copyright": law, conflicts and the quest for practical solutions

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Audiovisual research collections and their preservation

The basic problem of primary audio and video research materials is clearly shown by the survey: A great and important part of the entire heritage is still outside archival custody in the narrower sense, scattered over many institutions in fairy small collections, and even in private hands. reservation following generally accepted standards can only be carried out effectively if collections represent critical mass. Specialised audiovisual archives will solve their problems, as they will sooner or later succeed in getting appropriate funding to achieve their aims. A very encouraging example is the case of the Netherlands. The larger audiovisual research archives will also manage, more or less autonomously, the transfer of contents in time. For a considerable part of the research collections, however, the concept of cooperative models and competence centres is the only viable model to successfullly safeguard their holdings. Their organisation and funding is a considerable challenge for the scientific community. TAPE has significantly raised awareness of the fact that, unless action is swiftly taken, the loss of audiovisual materials is inevitable. TAPE’s international and regional workshops were generally overbooked. While TAPE was already underway, several other projects for the promotion of archives have received grants from organisations other than the European Commission, inter alia support for the St. Petersburg Phonogram Archive, and the Folklore Archive in Tirana, obviously as a result of a better understanding of the need for audiovisual preservation. When the TAPE project started its partners assumed that cooperative projects would fail because of the notorious distrust of researchers, specifically in the post-communist countries. One of the most encouraging surprises was to learn that, at least in the most recent survey, it became apparent that this social obstacle is fading out. TAPE may have contributed to this important development